Kissing Back
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Craig kisses Skinny.


I wasn't thinking really clearly. I'd stopped taking the meds but no one had cared when I was taking them. Ash and Joey wouldn't get off my back about it. So what was the point?

Things had fallen apart. Ashley leaving me like that, standing there outside her house and she said she needed a break from me. I just felt like I couldn't breathe when she said that, like I had the wind knocked out of me. Then I didn't tell Joey because he hadn't wanted me to go to England in the first place. I figured I could just go to the school and write the music for the Kevin Smith movie and then everything would be okay. Ashley would see that I was fine. Yeah, that was the plan.

So it didn't quite work out that way. Spinner ratted on me to Joey and he comes and gets me with that look, that sad concerned look he's always giving me. Joey thinks I'm such a screw up. Then Joey and Caitlin are fighting because of me and I don't know, I just had to leave.

It's raining and I'm just, I guess I'm running away again. My thoughts are racing. Ashley. The Kevin Smith movie. Joey and Caitlin. Everything's kind of piling up on me. I hear the drum beats in the distance, and I see that kind of homeless looking guy banging out the tuneless beat. Whatever. He's got the bucket for money in front of him but no one is hardly stopping. I have my guitar slung over my shoulder. I could help him out.

He looks at me for a second, really looks at me. There's something about him, I don't know. He's kind of edgy looking, kind of scary. But then he smiles at me when I start playing the guitar and people start dropping money in his little bucket.

"I'm Skinny," he says, and I nod, play a few more notes.

"Craig," I say.

"I'll tell you what, Craig. Play for a few more hours and I'll split what we make, 50-50,"

"Throw in a place to crash and it's a deal," I say, and he says it's done.

000000000000000000000000000000

I could play the guitar for hours, repetitive chords, mix it up sometimes, no big deal. It's all cold, though, in this rain. It beads up and rolls off my leather jacket. My fingers are wet and cold plucking the guitar strings. I can see Skinny's hair dripping, soaking wet, making it look darker. Rain flattens my hair, but when it dries it'll be all curly.

"Ready to call it a night?" Skinny says, the drums stopped, the sticks in one of his fists. I let the note I'm playing trail off.

"Yeah," I say, and look at him looking up at me. I can see the rain on his face like tears. And maybe I'm crying and no one can tell. Ashley. Ashley demolished me.

I follow him through the streets, down side streets. I can see the street signs staring us in the face every time we reach the end of one street and go onto another. Tourist town. Whatever. I couldn't pick out the tourists. I wasn't looking at anybody. I was following Skinny.

He pushes on the door of a dark building. I look around. It looks like it was part of a mansion once, maybe cramped apartments once, maybe some cheesy hotel. Now it was nothing. Boarded up, smelling like rotting wood and animals, their wet fur. I wrinkled my nose.

"Here?" I say, and I can feel that part of me that was rich, that little abused rich kid. Sure, my dad beat the shit out of me, but I still lived in a nice house and had everything. Joey's condo was no where near as nice as my dad's house had been, and sometimes I still feel like a refugee there. Now this, this rotting boarded up building with gauges in the walls and plaster falling from the ceiling in dry puffs. What kind of a place was this for a prince like me?

"Yeah," he says, "this is great. Cops never come here,"

It was cold, but still warmer than it was outside. There was an old sleeping bag on the floor and Skinny crawled into it after he kicked off his shoes. I slipped out of my sneakers, my socks were wet from the rain. I suck at running away. I didn't even bring extra socks, nothing.

"Come here," Skinny said, holding open the sleeping bag. He was skinny. Even through his shirt I could count his ribs. Maybe if I stayed on the streets I'd get to be as skinny as he was.

"Okay," I said, feeling this funny light headed fear. I thought of Ash again, but she was kinda fading. She had no place in this run down building, in the streets slick with rain, with my fingers hurting from playing the guitar for so long, with my stomach twisting in hunger, and with this street kid looking at me with hungry eyes.

I took a deep breath and got in the sleeping bag with him. I felt the warmth from his body, I felt the hardness of his muscles and bones pressing against me.

"Craig," he said, my name just a whisper.

"Yeah?" I said, and I saw him leaning toward me, his eyes closing. I licked my lips, squirmed against him in the sleeping bag, felt his hand slide down my back. I closed my eyes, too.

I was almost trapped in this sleeping bag, his hand on my back holding me down, and when he came in to kiss me I kissed him back.


End file.
